Thursday, August 14, 2014

When the Saracens and Moors, in the 8th century invaded and devastated
the rich and beautiful provinces of Spain, they were commanded by a
general whose name was Tarif, who had but one eye (See Anquetil's Universal History) - Our Tariff must be a
descendant of this infamous destroyer, and inherits his defect of having
but one eye, as it can see but one interest, and in one direction." (I found the above quote on microfilm at
the Tarboro Library, but I either failed to write down the source, or
there was none. Also, I failed to write down the date, but remember that
it was well before the War, 1823/1833 sticks in my mind. BT)

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Henry Clay (1777-1852) was one of the most influential men in American history. A brilliant Kentucky lawyer, gifted negotiator and politician, and skilled orator, Clay served three times as Speaker of the U.S. House, and twice represented Kentucky in the U.S. Senate. He ran for President in 1824. He lost but was appointed Secretary of State by John Quincy Adams. He founded the Whig Party and ran for President again in 1832 and 1844, losing both times. He continued to dominate the Whig Party and spent the last three years of his life as a Whig political leader and U.S. Senator. He is best known for advocating his American System of Economics, which included a strong national bank (and fiat printed money), corporate business and industrial subsidies to promote growth, and especially, high protective tariffs favoring manufacturing over agricultural and other commercial interests. The American system was basically big government intervention into the economy to spur growth. It differed significantly from a classical free market system driven by free price movements to adjust supply and demand. History has proved that free markets and free trade are far better creators of growth than government intervention. Nevertheless, government systems of intervention have a powerful appeal to ambitious politicians and voters with little knowledge or understanding of basic economics.

One of Henry Clay’s most powerful legacies was his influence on Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was a loyal admirer of Henry Clay, and as the Whig leader of Illinois, called Clay “my ideal of a great man.” Unfortunately, his devotion to Clay’s American System of Economics left a wide path of unanticipated economic hindrance and destruction for many decades.

While protectionist tariffs benefit selected industries or commercial interests, they punish everybody else. The higher prices charged by protected business interests are passed on to consumers and other businesses whose purchasing power and standard of living are thus lowered. Their reduced purchasing power reduces demand for consumer products and negatively impacts employment demand.

Protectionism is particularly hard on exporters. Besides their direct effect on the cost of doing business, tariffs negatively impact the exchange rate at which exports can be exchanged for products burdened with increased tariffs. In effect, not only are the exporters’ costs at home increased, but they are also likely to get less for their product on exchange. Furthermore, exporters often face retaliatory tariffs that result in lost business and even lost markets. The Confederate Constitution outlawed protective tariffs, and the Confederate Congress set a free-trade course.

In a 2006 study using mathematical regression analysis, Douglas Irwin analyzed the impact of the 30 percent average tariff during the year 1885. He found that protected industries were not able to increase their profits by the full 30 percent because the higher prices caused by the tariff increase also increased their costs. Their net profit increase through government protection was thereby reduced to about 15 percent, which explains why they kept crying for still higher tariffs. On the other side of the coin, the tariff reduced exporter profits by about 11 percent. The total redistribution of income across commercial interests and regions was a whopping 9 percent of total GDP (Gross Domestic Product).

Most consumers, however, were not directly involved in importing or exporting goods, so their economic loss was less visible, and politicians were able to favor special commercial interests with minimal impact at the polls.

Henry Clay’s strongly protectionist 1824 Tariff increased average dutiable rates from about 25 percent to 35 percent. Southern protest was so strong that the state legislatures of five of eight Southern states passed resolutions declaring it unconstitutional, and the South Carolina Legislature added that Henry Clay’s “American System” of tariffs and corporate subsidies was “a system of robbery and plunder” that “made one section tributary to another.” The 1824 Tariff resulted in painful increases in the cost of living and doing business in Southern states and severely reduced Southern export business. South Carolina’s export business dropped 25 percent over the next two years. Yet the tragic suffering imposed on the South by the 1824 Tariff was ignored by the Northern special interests that dominated Congress. Higher tariffs meant bigger profits to them.

In 1828, another tariff bill was passed, which was so overbearing and unjust that it is known in history as the Tariff of Abominations. The average dutiable rate was raised approximately 50 percent, raising the average rate to about 35 percent, the highest in history to that point. The original impetus was that Northern textile manufacturers believed they needed greater protection, but the bill became a comprehensive bribery scheme to win the votes of Middle and Western states in the presidential election. When the Tariff of 1832 did not give the South significant relief, the Nullification Crisis erupted in South Carolina. Southern reaction to the 1824, 1828, and 1832 tariffs should have been adequate warning that passing the Morrill Tariff in 1860-61 could lead to Southern secessions.

On June 17, 1930, near the beginning of the Great Depression, Congress passed the highest tariff bill in U.S. history, the Smoot-Hawley Act. President Herbert Hoover signed it reluctantly. Its stated purpose was to protect suffering American workers, farmers, and businesses from foreign competition. Until then, exporters were faring well and remained a relative strength in the economy.

The House passed the bill 264 to 147, with 244 Republicans and 20 Democrats voting for it. The Senate passed it 44 to 42, with 39 Republicans and 5 Democrats voting for it. As could have been predicted by historical experience, exports soon suffered, dropping 61 percent, and even Canada introduced a retaliatory tariff against U.S. goods. Unemployment was at 7.8 percent when Smoot-Hawley passed and jumped to 16.3 percent in 1931 and peaked at 25.1 percent in 1933. Republicans had not yet learned their Free Market and Free Trade lessons. Protectionist tariffs are generally harmful to economic growth and are essentially a political means of redistributing regional and commercial wealth.

The Pentagon might not have boots on the ground in Ferguson, Mo.,
where 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot by police on Saturday, but it
does have wheels on the street.

Michelle McCaskill, media
relations chief at the Defense Logistics Agency, confirms that the
Ferguson Police Department is part of a federal program called 1033 that
distributes hundreds of millions of dollars
of surplus military equipment to civilian police forces across the
United States.

The materials range from small items, such as pistols and
automatic rifles, to heavy armored vehicles such as the MRAPs used in
Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Islamic State’s
blitzkrieg advances across large swathes of Iraq have reached the gates
of Iraqi Kurdistan and the last week has seen some of the heaviest
skirmishes between Kurdish forces, the peshmerga, and the Sunni
militants.

Islamic State fighters sought to overpower the ancient Christian and Yazidi settlements around Mount Sinjar, northern Iraq,
by using the element of surprise against the peshmerga deployed nearby.
By August 7, thousands of religious minorities were fleeing their
ancestral lands, trying to escape the Islamic State ultimatum of convert
or die. Many were forced to take refuge, and dozens have died, on the
barren mountain without food or water.

Seizing several
strategically valuable towns, the Islamic State rapidly gained ground on
Erbil, the regional capital. Peshmerga forces attempted to push back
the militants, but were met with strong resistance. And the jihadist
push for Erbil has revealed some weaknesses with the peshmerga, which
was thought to be the only effective bulwark against further Islamic
State expansion.

Despite
the claim of victory at Gettysburg and a so-called high-water mark of
the American Confederacy, the Northern army nearly twice General Robert
E. Lee’s strength was badly mauled and in no condition to contest Lee’s
return to Virginia. Lee’s army did not re-cross the Potomac until 13 July and was not “seriously annoyed or molested in the interval” from a quiet 4 July. Lee immediately moved to the Rapidan river to confront the Northern army as it moved into Virginia east of the mountains.

“After the assault on the enemy’s works on the 3rd of July, there was no serious fighting at Gettysburg. The 4th
passed in comparative quiet. Neither army evinced any disposition to
assail the other. Notwithstanding the brilliant achievements of
[Generals Richard] Ewell and [A.P.] Hill on the first day, and the
decided advantage gained by Longstreet on the second, the failure of the
operations on the third day, involving as they did, but two divisions
of the army, deprived us of the prestige of our previous successes, and
gave a shadow of right to our adversary’s claim of having gained a
victory.

Their
exultation, however, should be tempered with moderation, when we
consider that, after one day of absolute quiet, the Confederates
withdrew from their front without serious molestation, and with the
bridges swept away, and an impassable river in rear, stood in an
attitude of defiance until their line of defeat could be rendered
practicable, after which they safely re-crossed into Virginia.

Then,
again, so serious was the loss visited upon the Federals in the
engagements of the first and second days, and so near success was the
effort to storm their position on the third day, that they were
themselves undecided as to whether they should stand or retreat.

In
discussing several councils or conferences held by General Meade with
his corps-commander, General Sickles testified, before the Committee on
the Conduct of the War, that the reason the Confederates were not
followed up was on account of differences of opinion whether or not the
Federals should themselves retreat, as “it was by no means clear, in the
judgment of the corps-commanders, or of the general in command, whether
they had won or not.”

On the 20th
of July, 1863, after the return of General Lee to Virginia, his army
numbered forty-one thousand three hundred eighty-eight effective,
exclusive of the cavalry corps [of about 7600]. It appears . . . that
General Lee’s loss in the Pennsylvania campaign was about nineteen
thousand.

Concerning
the strength of the Federal army [in late June 1863] . . . General
Hooker’s . . . total effective (force of officers and men) [was] fully
one hundred and twelve thousand . . . against the Army of Northern
Virginia at sixty-two thousand of all arms – fifty thousand infantry,
eight thousand cavalry, and four thousand artillery – and I believe
these figures very nearly correct.”

North Carolina officials say there has been a huge increase over the
past two years in the number of Tar Heel families who have pulled their
kids out of public schools and begun educating them at home.
The number of homeschools has jumped 27 percent since the 2011-12 school year, NewsObserver.com reports.

As of last year, 98,172 North Carolinian children were homeschooled;
that’s 2,400 students more than the number who attended a private
school.

The list below is a partial compilation of the names of those who
must be ousted from the positions they now hold, or defeated in any
attempt to be elected to office or appointed to a non-elected position.
By permanently closing the door to any influence these anti-American
statists may amass, citizens will take giant strides in helping their
country climb out of the current abyss.

But first, a bit of background. These are some of the most dangerous
people living in the country today. To the degree that they wish to rob
citizens of the Constitutional protections of their liberties, they are
no better than ISIS, al Qaeda, Hitler, or Stalin. And they are quite
adept at hiding their dirty work from the public.

In a dusty camp here,
Iraqi refugees have new heroes: Syrian Kurdish fighters who battled
militants to carve out an escape route for tens of thousands trapped on a
mountaintop.

While the U.S. and Iraqi militaries
struggle to aid the starving members of Iraq's Yazidi minority with
supply drops from the air, the Syrian Kurds took it on themselves to
rescue them. The move underlined how they - like Iraqi Kurds - are using
the region's conflicts to establish their own rule.

For the past few days, fighters have been
rescuing Yazidis from the mountain, transporting them into Syrian
territory to give them first aid, food and water, and returning some to
Iraq via a pontoon bridge.

The Virginia Flaggers will celebrate our third
anniversary, and the ONE YEAR anniversary of the raising of the first
I-95 flag in Chester, with a family picnic and auction on Sunday,
September 28th, at the picnic pavilion of the Mechanicsville Moose Lodge.

The fun starts at 3:00 pm, with live music, games for the kids, and time for fun and fellowship. Supper will be served at 5:00, followed by a live auction at 6:00, with the opportunity to bid on the first 10 x
15 Confederate Battle Flag that flew at the First Memorial Battle Flag
site, among many other valuable items. Raffle prize drawings and a silent auction for smaller items will also take place throughout the afternoon.

The Va Flaggers will provide BBQ and all the fixins, soft drinks, iced
tea, and lemonade. Guests and attendees are asked to bring side dishes/desserts of their
choosing to share.

Whether you are a core Flagger, one of our
many supporters, one who is interested in learning more about the Va
Flaggers, or simply would like the chance to bid on some beautiful
Confederate items, you are welcome to
join us in the celebration, as we look back at our first three
years...and share our vision and plans for the future.

PLEASE RSVP as soon as possible and let us know if you plan to attend, by email at info@vaflaggers.com

We are also accepting gifts of items for the silent and/or live
auction and welcome and appreciate your support.

Alleged photo of the now deceased Michael Brown posing with a gun, cash and a fruit drink, culled from social media.

Just as the Trayvon Martin narrative unfolded, as independent
bloggers and researchers enthusiastically scour social media a truer,
more complete picture of Michael Brown emerges as Sharpton remains on
site in an attempt to manage and direct the “narrative”.

Although earning praise from local authorities for his “official”
calls for “peace”, Sharpton’s ability to manage the narrative has been
called into question by by black and white observers keeping tabs on the
ever evolving and fluid situation from outside of the area of conflict.

The family of Ezell
Ford, 25, say that a cop shot him three times in the back while he was
on the ground Monday night. They organized a protest outside the LAPD
headquarters for Sunday.

It seems to be taken for granted by both the left and the right in
America today that incidents of police brutality are growing even as
crim that police
brutality is on the rise. Any look through the world of liberal opinion
will find many voices saying that police brutality is growing in America today.

From the right it has also become a favorite theme among libertarians
that police brutality is growing, even out of control. The libertarian
website Reason.com is constantly publishing stories about America's increasingly militarized police forces and tales of police brutality.

We've been debating internally whether or not to cover the mess that is
currently going on in Ferguson, Missouri. There has been plenty of
attention paid to the protests and the failures by police there -- and
we frequently cover problems with police, as well as the militarization
of police, which was absolutely on display in Ferguson (if you've been
under a rock, police killed an unarmed teenager there last week, leading
to protests over the past few days -- and the police have been handling
the situation... poorly, to say the least).

However, the situation was
changing so rapidly, it wasn't entirely clear what to cover. The
pictures from Ferguson of a very militarized police force were
disturbing, and we've been thinking about writing something on that (and
we may still). However, this evening, things got even more ridiculous,
as not only did the SWAT team show up, but it then arrested two of the reporters who had been covering the events:
Wesley Lowery of the Washington Post and Ryan Reilly of the Huffington
Post. Both had been vital in getting out the story of what was happening
on the street.

Remembrance

To die for one’s country is not only an act of bravery, it is THE act of bravery. For soldiers, it is just an extension of their military career, a part of their duty. As leaders have asked their soldiers to sacrifice themselves for the good of the society, it is only right for leaders to go through the same motion. They should practice what they have preached.

As war is seen as a noble act, tu sat serves as redemption in case of defeat. It is also a way to tell the enemy: “You might have won the battle/war but you don’t deserve to win because you don’t have the chinh nghia (just cause).” And it is not only just cause: it is the moral belief that the cause they are fighting for deserves their total sacrifice. Continues below

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Core Creek Militia

==============================My sixth great grandfather, his wife, and five of his six children were killed in battle with the Tuscarora Indians at Core Creek, NC.

The Seven Blackbirds

==============================My third great grandfather was an Ensign in the Revolutionary War, and saved his unit's flag after being wounded at the Battle of Brandywine. He was also at Kingston (Kinston), Wilmington, Charleston, Two Sisters and Augusta. He was at the defeat at Brier Creek and also Bee Creek.

Requiem Aeternam -
Eternal Rest Grant unto Them
==============================
My second great grandfather was killed in action on May 3, 1863 at the Battle of Chancellorsville.
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My great grandfather and great uncle knew all the men in the "Civil War Requiem" video as they were part of the 53rd NC which was the sole unit defending Fort Mahone. (Fort Mahone was named "Fort Damnation" by the Yankees) *Handpicked men of the 53rd (My great grandfather was one of these) made the final, night assault at Petersburg in an attempt to break Grant's line. This was against Fort Stedman which was a few miles to the slight northeast. They initially succeeded, but reinforcements drove them back. This video is made from photographs which were taken the day after the 53rd evacuated the lines the night before to begin the retreat to Appomattox. I have many more pictures taken by the same photographer, one of these shows a 14 year old boy and the other is the famous picture of the blond, handsome soldier with his musket.
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*General Gordon promised the men a gold medal and 30 days leave if they accomplished their task and many years after the War my great grandfather wrote General Gordon, who was then governor of Georgia about this incident. They exchanged several letters which I have framed. See first link below.
===========================
*The Attack On Fort Stedman
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"His Colored Friends"
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Lee's Surrender
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My Black NC Kinfolks
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Punished For Being Caught!

Great Grandfather Koonce

He was a drummer boy in the WBTS, survived the War only to die a few years later. He was caught in an ice storm on his way home, but instead of seeking shelter, continued on his horse until the end. His clothes had to be cut off and he died a few days later.